Posted on 03/12/2015 12:32:49 PM PDT by SoConPubbie
Two of the top lawyers for the Obama and Bush administrations agree on this: Sen. Ted Cruz can become president. Legally speaking, anyway.
Paul D. Clement, former solicitor general for President George W. Bush, and Neal Katyal, former acting solicitor general for President Obama, penned a piece for the Harvard Law Review tackling the question of what the Constitution means when it says that the president must be at least 35 years old, a U.S. resident for at least 14 years and a “natural born Citizen.”
“All the sources routinely used to interpret the Constitution confirm that the phrase ‘natural born Citizen’ has a specific meaning: namely, someone who was a U.S. citizen at birth with no need to go through a naturalization proceeding at some later time,” they wrote. “And Congress has made equally clear from the time of the framing of the Constitution to the current day that, subject to certain residency requirements on the parents, someone born to a U.S. citizen parent generally becomes a U.S. citizen without regard to whether the birth takes place in Canada, the Canal Zone, or the continental United States.”
Cruz was born in a Canadian hospital to a mother who was a U.S. citizen. But he’s only the latest potential presidential candidate who has had his qualifications questioned. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was born in the Panama Canal Zone. Former Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.) was born in Arizona before it was a state. Gov. George Romney (R-Mich.) was delivered in Mexico to U.S. residents. All were qualified to serve, . . . .
The First Congress, they noted, established that children born abroad to U.S. citizens were themselves citizens at birth “and explicitly recognized that such children were ‘natural born citizens.’
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
After the word naturalized is the word “OR”
>> No. They only have power over declaring the rule of naturalized citizens.
>
> So then what you’re saying is that if someone doesn’t fall under the category of a naturalized citizen as defined by U.S. law then they must, by default, be a natural born citizen?
Not quite.
Congress could, for example, pass a naturalization law declaring all Mexicans to be citizens. (This could be part of a declaration of annexation, or just the elitists finally tiring of troublesome citizens, it doesn’t matter.) — What congress cannot do is [e.g.] declare that Natural Born Citizen means every baby not born of a caesarean section.
Going to the most basic model, we have two citizens who [living in a single state] get married and have a child. This child is obviously a citizen, by virtue of his birth. — Now, let’s modify things a bit: two foreigners come, naturalize, then get married and have a child. Like the first he is a citizen by virtue of his birth. (This is to say that neither of these would fail the natural born citizenship test, regardless of the interpretation of “Natural Born Citizen”.)
Now, let’s say that there’s a law which naturalizes the child of a foreigner and a citizen. Here’s where things get murky, and by design. This law will be cited as in this condition as “birthright citizenship” even though the citizenship is naturalization. This is precisely so that they can confuse “natural born citizen” with “citizen naturalized at birth” and thereby weaken the Constitution’s requirement. — This is essentially where we are now.
However the Supreme Court ruled in 1874 in Minor v Happersett that “the Constitution does not say, in words, who shall be natural born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to determine that.”
“Elsewhere” has turned out to be statutory laws passed by Congress and signed by Presidents.
Ohhh, I oppose someone who supports and excuses McCain!
Run everyone, I don't absolutely agree with some public person purported a paragon of perfection! — You might be contaminated with that abhorrent abomination of opinion!
Somehow being conservative means I must subsume my will to the whole!
Yes, master ansel, teach us all your weirding way!
I assure you, I have no use for Ron Paul, and likewise no use for Rand Paul either.
I'm more of a Burkean conservative. My position on Cruz is that his eligibility is a moot point and this entire issue is just academic. If Barack Obama can hold the office, pretty much anybody can, and Article II is mostly irrelevant.
I think Ted Cruz is one of our best potential candidates and I would be happy to vote for him.
Thought you might be interested in this thread.
And this is what I have come to believe as well. I would never have guessed our team would be such a big bunch of P****s and the only explanation that makes any sense is that they were never really playing for our team.
They simply mouth the right rhetoric to get into power, and then they become part of the Uniparty.
Anti-Cruz, anti-Palin, anti-DOMA, and pro-Ron Paul.
Yeah, people can expect to see you trolling on the Cruz threads for at least the next two years.
Hamilton was accused of wanting to create a monarchy with his June 18th plan for a governour who served a life term. He wrote in a letter to Timothy Pickering in 1803 that wasn’t his intentions and that he gave a draft Constitution to Madison several days after the Convention ended. He does not mention presenting it earlier to the Convention.
http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-26-02-0001-0114
Yeah, 14 words "after."
A person born out of the jurisdiction of the United States can only become a citizen by being naturalized, either by treaty, as in the case of the annexation of foreign territory, or by authority of Congress, exercised either by declaring certain classes of persons to be citizens, as in the enactments conferring citizenship upon foreign-born children of citizens, or by enabling foreigners individually to become citizens by proceedings in the judicial tribunals, as in the ordinary provisions of the naturalization acts.
The powers of the legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken, or forgotten, the Constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained? The distinction between a government with limited and unlimited powers is abolished if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are imposed, and if acts prohibited and acts allowed are of equal obligation. It is a proposition too plain to be contested, that the Constitution controls any legislative act repugnant to it; or, that the legislature may alter the Constitution by an ordinary act.Portions of Marbury v. Madison, this contradicts the notion that
Between these alternatives there is no middle ground. The Constitution is either a superior paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and, like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it.
If the former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative act contrary to the Constitution is not law: if the latter part be true, then written constitutions are absurd attempts on the part of the people to limit a power in its own nature illimitable.
Certainly all those who have framed written constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and consequently, the theory of every such government must be, that an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void.
This theory is essentially attached to a written constitution, and is, consequently, to be considered by this court as one of the fundamental principles of our society. It is not therefore to be lost sight of in the further consideration of this subject.
Resort must be had elsewhere to determine that.can include statutory law because statutory law is
an ordinary actof the legislature.
conferring citizenship upon foreign-born children of citizens
Ah good, you saw that part. I guess we are done then.
Only in your estimation.
I'd be all for putting him in the USSC.
anti-Palin,
Not really, but then to you disagreement on any issue is enough to label one as anti-
X.
anti-DOMA,
Amendment 9 and 10 clearly state that the powers not delegated to the federal government are purview of the states — given that understanding there's a lot of federal law that ought not exist.
pro-Ron Paul.
Because I agree with him on things like abolishing the federal reserve? Or that we badly need tax-reform? Or that we ought not be involved in foreign wars absent a declaration of war?
Yeah, people can expect to see you trolling on the Cruz threads for at least the next two years.
And I can expect to see you being an abrasive jerk, it is one of the constants here on FR.
“Citizen of the United States at Birth” is one category and “Naturalized U.S. Citizen” is a completely different category.
There is no such category in U.S. Law: constitutional, statutory, common or administrative law as “Citizen by Birth.”
Yep, Cruz was not naturalized. He was a citizen at birth by virtue of US law consistently the same about the foreign-born children of citizens since the law of 1790.
Abrasive will be you smearing Cruz for years to come.
If it was by US law
then it was under congress's power, if it was under congress's power then it must be naturalization, as this is the only type of citizenship which congress has power over, and if it is naturalization then he is not a natural born citizen.
By citing any normal congressional act you undermine a claim that he is eligible.
Where am I smearing him?
Please cite.
Okay, I see we're not done. Go back and carefully read that opinion by the Wong Kim Ark court. It says the exact opposite of what you seem to think it says.
Now you can argue that the Wong Kim Ark court is wrong, or we can start diagramming the sentence to clarify subject verb associations to show that your understanding of what they said is wrong.
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